The Turning of the Tide
by stereolightning
Summary: En route to the train home for Christmas break, Lily ends up stuck in a horseless carriage with the Marauders. It's sixth year, and she doesn't especially like any of them, except for Remus. But Remus is something they have in common, and Lily knows better than anybody that friendships are complicated, and that people can surprise you.


**A/N: A Marauders Gift Exchange fic **_f__or mysteriousmoony (radicallyremus) who asked for "a fun Christmas fic with the boys," or "a fic about Remus and Lily's friendship." I've tried to do a little of both._

_Thanks to **starfishstar** for beta-reading!_

* * *

On the last day of term, Lily and Remus crunched down the snowy path from the castle, chatting idly about prefect duties and Christmas holiday plans. The crowd of students returning home had left a trail of brownish pockmarks in the snow with their muddy shoes. An enchanted snowman waved one of its tree-branch arms in a strangely empty farewell.

Though Lily didn't mention it, she was certain now that Severus had been right all last year – Remus must be a werewolf. Remus missed classes in an unmistakable pattern, and even now he looked peaky, though cheerful enough. Maybe you had to learn to be resilient if your body did that to you every month.

At the bottom of the hill, they halted in front of a row of horseless carriages. Three familiar figures were grouped beside the last carriage. Lily felt herself physically balk at the sight of them; she took an involuntary half-step back into the dirty snow.

"Oh, come on, sit with us, we're not _that _horrible," said James, leaned against the carriage, his black winter coat unbuttoned and flapping in the December air.

Somebody had gifted him with a kitschy reindeer headdress, antlers twined with fairy lights that flashed red and green, and he wore it atop his untidy hair like a crown. Sirius and Peter seemed to think this was terribly funny. They flanked him on either side, and all three of them leaned, limbs sprawling, exhaling sloppy streams of white breath as if it were cigarette smoke. Sixteen, and not boys, but not men.

"Speak for yourself. _I'm_ horrible," said Sirius, chewing on a liquorice wand and scrubbing snowflakes from his long, ink-dark eyelashes. "Deplorable, even. By the way, thanks for the detention the other day, Evans, I had an excellent time. So did Sprout, I think. Got too hot when I was helping her in the greenhouses, you see, so I had to disrobe. Very steamy."

Lily rolled her eyes and glanced at the other carriages. There were at least five students outside each one, and thus, no two empty seats together.

Remus inclined his head toward her, and his wavy brown fringe fell over his sleepy eyes. "Sorry," he said. "I made you late."

"S'all right," she said. "I still want to sit with you."

She made a final survey of the available carriages. A dozen yards away, she spotted Mulciber looking haughty and Severus scribbling fervently in his second-hand copy of _Advanced Potion-Making._ She had not spoken to him for seven months, except once, during Slughorn's NEWT class, when she had asked if he could please pass the camphor oil.

"Right. Budge over, lads," she said.

"We can't have two prefects in one carriage," said Peter, eying the badge pinned to her chest.

James smacked Peter on the arm as Lily pushed past them to claim a seat inside the carriage. James made a point of sitting opposite her, as if to prove he could behave himself and keep his distance. But he ruined it by grinning at her with undisguised glee. Remus took the seat beside her, unwinding and folding his scarf with small, graceful, cat-like movements.

"Happy Christmas to all of you," she said.

The carriage lurched forward, jingling the wreath of bells that Hagrid had affixed to the door for the occasion.

"Two prefects," said Sirius, eyes alert and body tensed, like a hound that had scented a fox. "We must behave ourselves."

"Must we?" asked James, mouth still stretched wide.

"Yes. Or we'll be in detention seven nights a week when we get back from the holidays," said Sirius, who did not look the least bit worried about this possibility.

"Moony never gives us detention, though," said Peter. "Moony is our favourite prefect."

_Moony. _The nickname made sense to her now. Well, his friends must have known for a while; they all slept in the same dormitory.

"I'm sorry, Lily," said Remus. "I know I ought to."

"Pfft. Moony is an excellent prefect," said James. "Hey Evans, have a swearing sweet."

He thrust a lumpen square of squidgy, frosting-covered something at her.

"Go on," he said. "Only lasts a minute. I just ate one, and I feel fucking fantastic."

"Ooh, give us a bit of that," said Peter, grabbing the sweet and stuffing it into his mouth. "Ahhh. Damn. Hell. Mmm."

"Aren't you all a little old for Honeydukes?" she asked.

"Are you fucking joking?" asked Sirius. "When is anyone too fucking old for fucking candy? Shit."

"You haven't had any, you idiot," said James.

"Yeah, but I like mouthing off in front of Evans," said Sirius, smiling his crooked, pretty smile and exposing one perfect white canine.

Lily bit the insides of her cheeks against a grin that threatened to erupt. "Thing is, I think Remus likes all of you too much to give you detention," she said.

"Whereas you think we're all toe-rags," said Sirius.

"Mmm. You are often badly behaved," she said.

"Maybe. But Moony can give us detention if he likes," said James.

"Go on then," she said, winking at Remus. "Get him to give you detention."

"Lily, you shouldn't ask that of them. They'll think you're serious," said Remus.

"I am serious," she said. "Go on. Push him over the edge."

"We can't push him over the edge while _you're_ here," said Peter. "_You'll _give us detention instead."

"I'll suspend my judgment until we get to Hogsmeade," she said. "I swear."

Peter, James, and Sirius gaped at her.

"I swear," she said again.

Recovering from his surprise, Sirius got up from his seat and stuffed himself between Lily and Remus. He smelled like cologne, heady and bitter. "Moony, Moony," he said. "What could we do to make you _really _angry with us?"

Remus suppressed a grin and looked out the window. Sirius pinched him on the back of the wrist. Goaded by the lack of reaction, Sirius dipped his head toward Remus and licked his face from chin to eyeball.

"Hey!" Remus said as he spun around and covered his cheek with his hand. "That's my _face_."

Sirius sniggered and tried to put his tongue in Remus' ear. Remus pushed him away.

"Sod off," said Remus, playfully cuffing the back of Sirius' neck.

Lily noticed, however, the way Remus curled his fingernails into his palm – careful not to scratch anyone even in jest. How absurd, the thought that those neatly filed nails could inflict permanent damage on anyone.

"Nah, you can't upset Moony by attacking him," said James. "You have to appeal to his moral nature. Attack somebody else in front of him."

"I've got a Fanged Frisbee," said Peter. "And a Yowling Yo-Yo that makes your ears ring for hours and hours. Let's chuck one into that carriage full of Slytherins."

"Lay off Snape," said Lily quietly.

"What?" asked James.

"I said lay off him," she repeated, meeting his bewildered, bespectacled gaze. "We're bothering Remus, remember?"

James frowned at her and sunk deeper into his seat, twitching his boots in thought, or agitation. They were nice boots – glossy, whiskey-coloured leather. She wondered if he did his own shopping, or if his mother dressed him. He pushed his glasses higher up his nose, and she could see the cogs spinning behind his eyes. Here was the thing about James – he acted like an idiot, but he was far from stupid. Stupid people didn't get nine OWLs.

After a long moment, he glanced at Sirius and said, "What do you reckon? Tickling hex?"

In perfect unison, Sirius and James fired their wands at Remus, who cast a counter-charm in self-defence. Apparently he'd had a lot of practice at that. Then they went after Peter, who ducked. Finally, James and Sirius grew bored and hexed each other. Sirius swore and spasmed with laughter and fell across Lily's lap. James thrashed about and accidentally kicked her across the shin, and then apologised, and then kicked her again. She wondered if this was what it would have been like to grow up with brothers – a perpetual dog-pile.

As the carriage passed a copse of trees, the scent of pine crept through a gap in the window.

"Which one of you made up that naughty version of the Sorting Hat song?" she asked, shoving Sirius off her with both arms. "I heard some third-years singing it in the common room."

"Wasn't me," said Peter, hoisting up his pale, open palms like white flags of surrender.

"Come on, it must have been one of you," said Lily. "It's totally your style. You know that part, where Hufflepuff rhymes with up the duff, and there's that whole verse about Salazar Slytherin sucking on –"

"It wasn't me," said James.

"Nor me," said Sirius. "But do go on."

Lily looked to Remus, who was biting back a grin. "Was it you, Remus? Whoever wrote it was very clever. There's that whole bit about all four of them in the Chamber of Secrets, which was creative, although quite explicit. Especially when Ravenclaw shoves her whole hand – "

"Not I," Remus said.

"Really? Maybe we should sing it and jog your memory," she said.

James and Sirius launched immediately into the first verse, which was so foul that Remus blushed and covered his face. Lily joined in on the chorus, and Sirius added a few illustrative hand gestures, and then Peter and Remus sang, too. They finally finished six raunchy verses later, wiping away tears of mirth. Really, it had been worth it just for the bit about Gryffindor and the randy Scottish milkmaid. Surely that had been Sirius' invention. But she suspected all four of them had concocted the whole song together, no matter what they had said to the contrary.

"Well, Remus," said Lily, convulsing with giggles, "if you ever do find out who penned that shameful parody, I hope you will give them a detention. We all deserve one just for repeating it."

"I'll bear that in mind," said Remus.

"Evans, you're not a bad sort, are you?" said Sirius, leaning his sculpted cheek on her shoulder like an affectionate dog. "Bit of a swot, but on the whole..."

She flicked his ear.

"Ow."

The carriage rolled to a stop in the village. Lily re-wound her scarf around her neck as Remus opened the door against a blast of freezing wind. She walked with him to the Hogwarts Express, the engine tall and tomato-red beyond the falling snow and black, leafless trees. The other three boys detoured to Honeydukes to restock their supply of sweets before the journey home.

"I don't mean to insult you, Remus. You're great at all the other prefect stuff. Giving detentions isn't the most important thing," she said.

He shook his head. "No, I know I let them off too easily. Last year Sirius did something that I... I should have been angrier about. But you know how it is with friends. Sometimes you're so close that you can't see them clearly."

Yards away, Severus appeared from behind a brick pillar on the platform. He spotted Lily, scraped his hand through his oily black hair, and shot Remus a sour look before glaring pointedly in the other direction, his hooked nose in profile.

"Yeah. I know what you mean," she said. She knew Severus was going home to a joyless Christmas, in that dim row house littered with broken bottles. Her chest squirmed with sympathy that had not yet died, in spite of everything.

"Happy Christmas," Remus said. "See you in two weeks."

"Happy Christmas," Lily said, pulling him into a hug and catching a face full of woolly muffler that warmed the tip of her nose. Remus was good at hugs.

"Be good. Or don't," he said. "I'd be disappointed if you were too good."

"Same to you," she said, and she kissed his cheek. "Remus the Reprehensible."

She said goodbye to him and then joined her group of girlfriends in a compartment near the front of the train. From the window, she watched Remus and his three friends laughing and tossing cockroach clusters at each other on the platform. The fairy lights on James' antlers flashed. Remus beamed at them, looking wan from the waxing moon, but blissful. They knew he was a werewolf and none of them cared. He was loved to pieces by those rowdy boys.

She really didn't think they were that horrible.


End file.
